Polium. Poley-Mountain

Description

Polium. Poley-Mountain

Poley-Mountain: a small shrub-by plant, with square stalks, oblong woolly leaves set in pairs; and labiated flowers wanting the upper lip and having the lower divided into five segments.

1. Polium maritimum erectum monspeliacum C.B. Teucrium captatum Linn, Poley-mountain of Montpellier; with the leaves indented towards the end and joined to the stalk without pedicles, the flowers white and set in roundish (pikes on the tops of the branches.

2. Polium angustisolium creticum C. B. Teucrium frutescens, stoechados arabicae folio & facie Tourn. Teucrium creticum Linn. Poley-mountain of Candy; with the leaves not indented and set on short pedicles, the flowers standing in loose clutters, each on a separate foot-stalk.

Several other species, or varieties of polium, erect and procumbent, with white, yellow, and purplish flowers, have been received in the shops. The second above described has been commonly understood as the true officinal sort, and procured dry from the island Candy, of which it is a native: the first, which better bears the winters of our own climate, appears to be of the same quality; and hence the college allow either sort to be taken indifferently.

Aq. litharg. acetat. Ph. Lond.

Aq. litharg. acetat. comp, Ph. Lond.

The leaves and tops of poley-mountain have a moderately strong aromatic smell, and a disagreeable bitter taste: distilled with water, they yield a small quantity of yellowish essential oil, of a pungent taste, in smell less agreeable than the herb itself; the remaining decoction, infpif-fated, leaves a strongly bitter extract. They stand recommended as corroborants, aperients, and antispasmodics; but are at present scarcely otherwise made use of than as an ingredient in mithridate and theriaca.